


and all the currents of a heavy fight

by eudaimon



Category: Hollow Crown RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/pseuds/eudaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rehearsals are difficult; she loses track of what happens when.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and all the currents of a heavy fight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [newredshoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, sweetheart! This idea has been bugging it for months, so I'm just glad to get it down. I hope this works for you and then you enjoy it ♥

_Will this content you, Kate?_ he says and her head spins, just a little. It’s the same with Dan at Downton, too; her heart’s an actor, too. They’re not even on set today – today’s one of the big Hal days, the scene in the tavern, and they’ve all stopped by, Jeremy included, to watch Tom doing that flawless impression that has them in stitches on both sides of the fourth wall. Her and Joe are camped out in a trailer, the kettle almost constantly boiling for tea, rehearsing the scene that they’re scheduled for tomorrow.

“Don’t you think it’s ironic?” she asks him, Michelle for a moment, shrugging Kate off like a blanket. She’s sprawled on the single bed that’s doing duty for a four-poster and Joe has paused in reading lines, battered, dog-earred copy folded over itself as he looks down at her, head tilted on one side. He’s very dashing when he’s in Hotspur’s get up, but she’s full-time on a period drama, for fuck’s sake – she’s somewhat immune to ‘dashing’ by now. What she likes best is Joe for Joe’s sake, Joe in battered t-shirt and worn out jeans, trainers and his unbrushed hair. She likes the sharp point of his nose, and his accent and the way he can’t stand still while he’s running lines. He has all of this nervous energy that seems perfect for Hotspur, a perfect counterpoint for Tom Hiddleston’s Hal who’ll be Henry who’ll have learned, by then, to be still. She likes that he’s very different from Trent. She likes that he’s brave the way actors aren’t, always. 

“ _And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate_ ,” she reads, doing a passable impression of him, which makes him stick a finger up at her, grinning as he reaches for his tea. “And she’s just threatened to break his bloody finger.”

“Yeah, but she’s taking the piss, isn’t she?” he says, shrugging and coming to sit on the bed beside her. “That’s the point.”

“That’s what I like about them,” she says, shifting to turn to face him, and maybe she’s Kate, right then, with her sleeves pulled down over her hands and her hair tumbled around her face by the last time he took hold of her and she’d felt the push-pull tension in him. She leans in closer to him, to the scent of his tea and his body, the lingering odour of the last cigarette he sneaked outside, cupped in chill fingers.

“Hmm?” he asks her. Sometimes, it’s hard for her to figure out if it’s Joe or Hotspur that she’s fallen for, just a little bit. Joe’s never done Shakespeare before, not one of those Romeos, not Hamlet or Claudio. He doesn’t know how dangerous it can be – doesn’t know how it can eat you whole. Sometimes, the edges are blurred.

“He doesn’t underestimate her. She’s a match for him,” she says, feeling flustered, leaning back a little to put some distance between them because, sometimes, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. Sometimes, he kisses her in character and she doesn’t want him to stop. Like now – he leans in and grazes his mouth against hers.

“ _Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down_ ,” he says, reaching for her with both hands, tugging her down beside him.  
And there it is again: the spinning. The ever-present trembling of the edge of falling entirely.


End file.
